Dennis McNeilly, Pys.D., associate professor of psychiatry, is among the four UNMC faculty members who will receive Outstanding Teaching Awards at the April 20 Annual Faculty meeting.
Below, Dr. McNeilly reflects on what it means to be a teacher.
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Dennis McNeilly, Psy.D. |
- Name: Dennis McNeilly, Psy.D.
- Title: Associate professor of psychiatry
- Classes/courses taught: Psychiatry course director, M2 Core 7 Course
- Joined UNMC: 1999
- Hometown: Fort Dodge, Iowa
What are the greatest rewards of being a teacher?
Knowing that I’ve made a difference, not necessarily in the amount of knowledge learned, but in the meaning that knowledge has for the student.
What are the biggest challenges you face as a teacher?
My biggest challenge to teaching is having enough time and remembering just who the student is seated before you. Circumstances continue to challenge the amount of personal contact between teacher and medical student and between student and patient. Millennial medical students experience and motivations may differ greatly from their baby-boom faculty. My main strategy is to help students see the connection between what is learned and their goals and medical careers.
How do you know when you’ve been successful as a teacher?
When students reminds me of connections or imprints I’ve made for them that forever changed the lenses through which they see patient, a disorder, a psychiatric condition or themselves.
List three things few people know about you.
- All-time favorite movies: To Kill a Mockingbird and Cinema Paradiso.
- I still miss rollerblading on the Strand from when I lived in Los Angeles.
- After watching my 12-year-old niece Molly’s remarkable progress at playing the piano, I was inspired last June to finally take up piano lessons myself.
Congrats! Well-deserved Dr McNeilly!